speaker boehner said he is waiting on president obama to outline spending cuts. this is a kind of strange thing for the speaker to say. president obama outlined very specific cuts in his proposal to the republicans. republicans have not offered anything specific in cuts whatsoever. of course, nothing specific in revenue whatsoever. all generalizations. the republicans want more spending cuts. tell us what you want. that is what i say to them. we cannot read their minds. we are not going to make a proposal for them. republicans know perfectly well that democrats are willing to make tough choices on these issues, if they understand, which i hoped they do by now, we are going to look out for the middle class first. the only thing standing in the way of an agreement is republicans, their insistence on holding tax cuts for middle- class families hostage to bring on the fiscal cliff. there is a lot of bluster coming from republicans, but that is crumbling quickly. every day, we read about more republicans breaking ranks, calling out the speaker to allow tax rates to ri